The National Chairman of the Jama’atu Ahlus Sunnah Wal-Jama’ah (JIBWIS), Sheikh Muhammad Sani Yahya Jingir, has defended his controversial support for Muslim-Muslim presidential tickets, insisting that Nigerians should vote for candidates who share his political and religious convictions.
Jingir, while responding to the controversy generated by his recent remarks on Nigeria’s political history and leadership, said he had no intention of withdrawing his position.
“I wonder how Nigerian Christians would call for voting for their own, but somebody will say I have no right to ask for whom we should vote for,” he said.
The cleric declared that his position was rooted in what he described as the prolonged suffering of Muslims in Plateau State.
“voting Muslim-Muslim Tickets is what I stand on, because we have suffered enough in the hands of Christian in Plateau State”.
He further alleged that Muslims had faced injustice in the state, recounting what he described as disparities in voting patterns and political representation.
He said, “In my state, which we were there before its creation as a state, Christians said we don’t belong and that we should be expelled; and I can tell you in one area where we have dominance, we counted 100,000 votes for a councillor, but in another area, they counted 15,000 votes for a person that went to National Assembly. Where is justice in this?”
Jingir, however, clarified that his Muslim-Muslim ticket advocacy was not limited to President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima.
“My Muslim-Muslim ticket is not on Ahmed Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, but anybody who believes in what I believe in, on the fact that Nigeria Muslims have suffered enough with their leaders being killed”.
The JIBWIS leader also denied making any statement beyond encouraging Muslims to exercise their voting rights and support candidates they believe in.
“what I said on the day is what I stand on”.
He went on to discuss the historical killing of prominent Nigerian Muslim leaders, alleging that political violence had affected Muslim leadership in the country.
On the killing of former Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, he said, “the person that killed Sardauna was Major Nzeogwu Kaduna,”
Jingir also made claims concerning the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, saying, “those who presented him said he will die in the next six months but he spent two years”.
He added that, “At that time many Nigerian Christians were saying that Yar’Adua was incapacitated and he would die; that gave me heart attack that these people, historically, they disliked us and their positions would never change”.
The cleric stressed that his support for Muslim-Muslim tickets predates the emergence of the Tinubu-Shettima ticket, arguing that his position was a long-standing personal conviction.
“My calls and position on Muslim-Muslim tickets is a long time things; it didn’t start with Tinubu, but because he was the one who accepted it, that is why I will continue to talk about him and voting for him, and this is my personal opinion”.
